


Stanger under his Skin

by RaysReads



Series: Broken Puzzle Pieces [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Charlie Weasley, BAMF Percy Weasley, Genius Percy Weasley, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Nonsexual Dom/sub, Percy Weasley-centric, fred and george are not the same person!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:40:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaysReads/pseuds/RaysReads
Summary: Percy invites a friend over for his last summer before he graduates. His siblings didnt even know he had any friends, when said friend arrives Percy's behavior changes drastically and the realize they have no idea who they are living with.Follow my fanfiction tumblr to bug me for updates and see what im working on!https://writing-by-candlelight.tumblr.com/
Relationships: Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood
Series: Broken Puzzle Pieces [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018884
Comments: 7
Kudos: 260





	Stanger under his Skin

Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood had been best friends from the moment they met. It wasn't a surprise really. Being the only boys in their year they shared a dorm and had every class together. This meant that they saw each other all day, every day and spent every waking (and sleeping) moment together. From the moment the Hat shouted ‘GRYFFINDOR!’ and Oliver plopped down next to Percy at the feast it was Percy and Oliver, Oliver and Percy. 

No one noticed.

Everyone looked at Percy and assumed he had no friends. He was nerdy and tall and awkward with a head of red curls and dark freckles. He always had a bag slung over his shoulder filled with writing utensils and ink, his arms were always full of heavy books and rolls of parchment. When he looked at someone it was always over the top of his glasses which slipped down his nose all the time and made people dislike him more for his ‘superior attitude’. It made people think he was looking down on them.

(He wasn’t, sticking charms are just a pain)

When People looked at Oliver they assumed he had dozens of friends. He was on the short side with wild brown hair and hazel eyes that stood out against his tan skin like a black bear in antarctica. He had sunspots along his shoulders and back from playing Quidditch all summer long. He was always talking about it - Quidditch that is. And it was sort of his problem, he never stopped talking about it. Breakfast he spent rattling off the statistics of as many players as he could, Lunch was about the Falmouth Falcons and their dirty fouls. Dinner spent in silence, drawing up plays and tactics like a starving man receiving food. Every friend he had left eventually, not able to take it any longer.

(In third year Oliver admits to Percy that it's a tactic meant to weed out the bad friends to get to the true ones, Percy is the only one that’s made it through. It doesn't stop him from obsessing the same amount, if not more, though. Even if he has a sure friend in Percy.)

They're both loners in their own right. But they work, Percy interjects on Oliver’s running Quidditch commentary with statistics and figures and large numbers that Oliver doesn't understand (but he will damn it, he will) because Percy can analyze and calculate trajectories and angles and probabilities with a single fleeting glance.  
Oliver is his anchor.  
Percy’s brain is on levels he’ll never understand and always on extreme overdrive. It absorbs every detail of information from all 5 senses, analyzes, interprets and calculates it. So when it all gets too much, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the textures, he takes Percy and holds him until the whimpering stops and he falls asleep.  
Both were obsessive to the point of insanity and both complex to the point that their own mothers had given up trying to figure them out.

(They figure eachother out. By second year they know the other better than themselves and can hold entire conversations with a glance.)

It's not a surprise to either of them when in the middle of a discussion on the merits of the uses of arithmancy on the Wronski Feint (Don't ask, Percy was way further ahead then he should have been in the realm of numbers) Percy stops and pulls Oliver into a kiss. It's chaste, no open mouth or teeth or tongues, they’re eleven after all, but it's amazing and the beginning of a big thing. 

No one notices when they start dating. Nothing really changed anyway, except that in the quiet privacy of their dorms they kissed and cuddled and laughed and held hands. They were eleven, they didn't expect it to last. But by some miracle it did.

(It wasn't a miracle, they're both smart and they both work hard and when they want something they'll get it, whatever it takes.)

When they’re going on thirteen, chaste kisses turn into licking tongues and clashing teeth and bitten lips. Fourteen changes that into wandering hands and being pressed into mattresses and heavy groping. And when they turn fifteen something changes.

Percy has always sought control and power above anything else. In a house with six siblings he was always stuck in the middle somewhere. Never special...never...loved. He could be the wisest most influential person on the planet and his siblings would still never listen to him. They laughed and teased and hated but they never did as they were told. It was just one thing to add to the ever growing list of things he couldn't control. Their poverty, their status, their respect, the twins pranks, his own respect, how different he was from his family, their love, their fathers stupid job, the elitists. He always followed; the rules, authority, curfew, power. 

(He was never at the top.Always just under it and when he had minor position of power (prefect, headboy) it was never enough. He was still under the control of others, subject to their every whim)

Oliver didn't want control in the slightest. He was always in control of everything. When his mom became sick with cancer, he was the one taking care of his dad, when his dad got drunk with grief after her funeral, he was the one to pick him up and put him to bed. When his dad got out of rehab years later Oliver was a very independent person who didn't trust easily anymore, whose laugh was strained in his father's presence. He was always the leader, always the first. In Quidditch, in school, in clubs. People always looked up to him.

(He hated it, couldn't they see he had no idea what he was doing?)

It started small, like all things did. When they walked down hallways at the age of Fifteen, Percy put his hand on the small of Olivers back, guiding him. It soon escalated to him dishing out Oliver's food at breakfast, then dinner. Never Lunch as Percy skipped it, but that started when Oliver couldn't (wouldn’t) choose for himself after a while of Percy taking charge. It then escalated to massive proportions.  
Every time Oliver was asked something he glanced at Percy first, unless he wasn't there. Oliver always asked Percy if he could do something, even if it was going to the bathroom, Percy dictated everything Oliver did. Everything. From what he ate to who he talked to to what he wore to where he was.  
Oliver wanted to sleep? He asked Percy.  
Oliver wanted to leave? Percy.  
He wanted to think about something? Percy.  
Every moment of every day Percival Weasley was in control. At the beginning they could control it, turn it on and off per se. But after a while, when they were in the vicinity of one another it was like a switch had been flipped, Percy took control and Oliver complied. They loved it and eventually it extended to the bedroom when Percy took Oliver's virginity on his sixteenth birthday.

Still no one even suspected. It wasn't like they tried to hide it, people were just idiots.

* * *

It was the summer before seventh year. Percy was seventeen, Head boy, and had been dating Oliver Wood, Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, since he was eleven. He had been penning him a letter at the kitchen table when Fred and George had barged in.

_Ver,  
Summer has been weird without you. Harry’s coming to visit soon and Ron has been happy as ever. Ginny has gotten home from her weekend stay at Luna Lovegood's and Mum has been nagging her instead of me this year, thank goodness. Fred and George haven't done anything too bad to me yet this summer which is making me quite suspicious, but what can one do but wait until the other shoe drops? _

_You better take care of yourself this summer Ver. I ca-_

He didn't get to finish as Fred and George had yanked the parchment out from under his palm. Thank god for instant drying ink.  
Mrs. Weasley came in just as the twins were doing a dramatic rendition of the partial letter in their hands, while Percy just laid his head in his arms on the table. Percy, though being the tallest Weasley at 6 feet 11 inches and completely capable of snatching it back, just laid there in defeat.

“Fred! George! What have you got there?! Give it back!”

They exchanged gleeful looks. “Mum! Percy’s got a friend!”

“Well of course he has friends! He’s not a Hermit. Now give that back, you two! Percy dear, would you like to invite your friend over? I’ve never met one of your friends before. All of your siblings have brought someone around for a summer. You should too, it's your last after all.”

Percy gaped slightly at the offer as George snickered behind his hands.

“Er...alright mum I’ll ask.”

The terrible twins looked shocked at the statement. Percy hated anyone getting involved with his personal life, even their own father. So Percy inviting a friend to their house and looking moderately excited at the prospect was rather alarming.  
Molly beamed at the change in her third eldest son and set to bustling in the kitchen as Percy snatched back the letter and picked up his dropped quill.

_-can't take another year of you playing Quidditch for three days straight without food or water and then getting yourself hospitalized!  
Anyway...I’ve been beating around the bush. Truth is - I miss you Ver. How are you getting on without me? Are you able to make decisions by yourself or are you floundering at the prospect?  
Mum asked me to invite you over for the summer. It’s only three days in and she wants you here for the rest of it. You’re coming. Anything to get you away from your Father.  
Did you know that people don’t know we’re friends? We sit together at every meal, have every class together, share a dorm and spend all of our time together. I serve you your food for Merlins sake but to everyone I'm a social outcast and hermit while you're the popular heartbreaker. I’m shaking with amusement. We won't be subtle about our relationship and we’ll act like we do in private and answer all questions honestly. If they figure it out...good for them, their faces will be hilarious. If they don't they’re idiots. Even more so then I thought.  
Can't wait to see you  
Love,  
PERCY_

Percy sent the letter off with his owl Hermes and later that morning a reply arrived, Oliver didn't live far after all.

_Perce,  
I miss you too, a lot. It's surprisingly hard to make my own decisions when someone else does it for you most of the year.  
I can hear you laughing...knock it off!  
Anywho, I’d love to come over and stay, I'll floo over at noon tomorrow then. Finally won't have to do things for myself again and you can be sure that I don't overdo the quidditch. I'm missing your company and your sarcastic quips and i don't like being alone with my hand and mental images either (Stop grimacing you know you miss the sex too). I can't wait to see you! Though I wonder if anyone will put it together.  
This’ll be exciting!  
Love,  
VER_

Percy smiled and turned to his mother to confirm that ‘yes he’s coming over tomorrow’ and ‘no you don't have to make his favorite food for his arrival’ and ‘*sigh* if you insist. It’s beef stroganoff’

Ginny turned to her siblings. Everyone was here for once and were exchanging incredulous glances at the fact that Percy of all people had friends and was willing to let them come over for the summer. Ginny had Luna over all the time, Ron always had Harry and Hermione over, The twins usually dragged Lee Jordan along, Charlie often hung out with Nymphadora Tonks and Bill spent a lot of time with his friends who went on to become The Weird Sisters. But Percy?! Percy never let anyone come over to the house in the 6 (going on 7) years he had been at Hogwarts. He always kept school and family strictly separate and everyone had thought he didn't have friends.

Percy soon left to go to the small antiques shop in town to see if they finally had that typewriter he had been saving up for, and the rest of the Weasley brood gathered in the livingroom to discuss this new development.

Bill called everyone to order and opened the discussion. “So...who knows anything about who this friend could be?”

The siblings were spread around the room with various activities. Ginny was sewing patches on her jean jacket to make it more feminine, it had belonged to Charlie first before being passed down the ladder. Ron was playing Chess against himself as George laid on the floor near him with a gigantic canvas and various paints. Charlie had commissioned a painting of an Antipodean Opaleye dragon after making a special paint from the crushed scales of one. He watched George in amazement as the scarily realistic Mother-of-Pearl Dragon came to life as he painted. Fred sprawled on the couch as he tried in vain to create a perfect Runic sequence to engrave into his quills so the ink would come directly from the pot instead of having to be dipped. It was like a blood quill or muggle pen but would get him major points on his exam and he was struggling.

The twins glanced up with wicked grins and regaled them with the tale of Percy’s letter from the previous morning. 

“Well?” Charlie prompted. “Who was it from?” 

George grimaced, “we have no idea. It was addressed to ‘Ver’ we don't know who that could be.”

The Weasleys exchanged glances and soon abandoned their tasks and fell into frantic discussion.

* * *

By the next morning they had still not gathered who would be coming to stay with Percy but bets had been made. They didn't bet with money of course, but instead promised the exchange and overtaking of chores.  
George and Charlie both thought it would be Penelope Clearwater. Percy had been seen talking to her on a few occasions and she was a lot like Percy, no nonsense, rule following and a bit stuck up. Fred thought it would be a Hufflepuff, Hufflepuffs were nice and the only people he thought could put on a pleasant face long enough to stand him. Even Ravenclaws shied away from the insane, obsessive, knowledge-hoarding genius that was Percy Weasley. Ginny and Ron were insistent on the fact that it would be someone who he was only mildly acquainted with that he had bribed to come and Bill thought it might be someone from the nearby village.

Soon it neared 12 AM, the time the floo opened for the ever mysterious ‘Ver’.  
Arthur watched in amazement as his 3rd eldest; the one who always scowled, the one who was always proper and clean and polite and patient and quiet and perfect; danced in front of the fireplace. He was incessantly bouncing on the balls of his feet with a humongous grin on his face. 

He was immaculate as always but had seemed to loosen up at the prospect of his friend visiting, a concept that had seemed impossible but was now in front of them bouncing like a child on christmas day.  
His hair was curly and wild instead of straightened and gelled back and his clothing, though formal, was more casual than it had been in years. Instead of his usual robes, frock coat and jacket with slacks and dress shoes, buttoned up to the neck; he wore a soft white button down with its sleeves rolled to the elbows and the top button undone, under a dark green sweater vest. This was accompanied by a nice pair of khakis that were skin tight all the way down to the ankles, which were covered by knee high black combat boots. His usual rule of covering completely, from throat to wrist to ankle, had apparently gone out the window, and for the first time in years his family glimpsed more skin than his face and hands.

It was practically a strip tease.

Soon the fire burned green and a boy around 5’10”, way shorter than Percy (but wasn't everyone?), stepped through. Before anyone could see who it was, Percy darted forward and enveloped him in a hug. “Ver!!!!!” Percy sighed in happiness, breathing in the scent of him. “You’re here!”  
A deep chuckle greeted them as the other boy laughed at Percy’s happiness. He pulled away after a while to fuss over Percy’s wellbeing with questions like ‘have you been eating?’ ‘how about sleep?’ and ‘do you know what the sun looks like?’

This would have been funny for the remaining children but they were all in shock over seeing Oliver Wood in their living room.  
As Percy’s friend.  
It must be the end times, what had the world come to?

* * *

“You guys are friends?!” The twins exclaimed in tandem.

Oliver frowned. “Well...yeah. We are the only boys in our year after all. Not even just the only boys in Gryffindor, the only ones in our entire year! Super crazy when we noticed.” He then glimpsed Charlie and a bright smile broke out on his face. “Charlie! Oh my Merlin, I didn't know you’d be here!” They embraced and Oliver playfully glared at Percy “Someone didn't tell me”  
“Well i’m so sorry I didn't want to see you eye-fuck my aroace brother for weeks.” 

Ron thought he was going crazy. First Percy smiles, then he wears something that shows more skin than a nun for once, then he swears. The siblings exchange glances. What is happening? Charlie was too busy processing the fact that Percy and Oliver were friends, and didn't respond in his usual lecherous manner. It didn't matter in the end, the moment was over too quickly. 

Percy turned to Oliver and gave him a look none of his siblings could decipher.  
It was like a switch had been flipped, Oliver straightened and immediately stepped away from Charlie and back to Percy’s side, it was if his brain suddenly went through a reboot. His posture changed, he seemed to relax as tension drained out of him. He suddenly went completely mute and gazed up at Percy’s tall frame. They seemed to have a silent conversation before Oliver nodded, shook himself, and seemingly went back to his usual easy going smiles and loud joking.

As Oliver started to socialize with his siblings (who had come out of their shocked stupor) Percy reclined lazily in an overstuffed recliner. It was in a way his siblings had never seen before, his usual frowns and nagging had been replaced with a cold and calculating indifference as he slouched in the chair, legs spread wide. One elbow was propped up on the armrest, palm holding his chin slightly; while the other rested on the other armrest, swirling around a mug of hot chocolate.

That was the most surprising part to Bill. The fact was, Percy couldn't keep quiet for more than five minutes. His outbursts were usually ones of annoyance or anger as he struggled to be heard or listened too in the tangle of red hair and limbs. His face would go bright red and he’d anxiously run his fingers through his hair over and over in a soothing motion, sometimes tugging on it, as his brain struggled with all the input.

The fact was - Percy was a certified genius (not that his siblings knew of course). With an IQ nearing 200 Percy’s brain was running on high 24/7. Bill was the only one who knew besides his parents. Percy would soak up every detail of every room he entered, the life story of every person he met for over 20 seconds, the history of every building he threw even a passing glance at. It was a lot for someone, especially a young boy, and Bill had coached him through more Panic attacks, Meltdowns, Overloads, and full on Shutdowns than he could count; tears, snot, vomit, injury, subconscious self harm, and all.

To see Percy so still was a miracle.

But then he noticed something else, Percy wasn't as lost in thought as he pretended. He was watching Oliver in a subtle manner. He wouldn't have noticed if he didn't know his brother as well as he did. Before Oliver answered a question, or even asked one, he glanced to Percy. Once their eyes locked it seemed as if Oliver was asking for permission. After awhile Bill deciphered that a small movement with the middle finger on his mug was a positive, and movement with his thumb was a negative.

It was strange.


End file.
